


Call to (Mis)Adventure

by br42



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons References, Dwarves, Elves, F/F, F/M, Gen, Gift Fic, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21988858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42
Summary: Three heroes set forth on a grand quest... largely to undo the damage of their last quest.
Relationships: Bismuth & Connie Maheswaran, Bismuth & Pearl (Steven Universe), Bismuth & Steven Universe, Connie Maheswaran & Pearl, Connie Maheswaran & Steven Universe, Pearl & Steven Universe
Kudos: 12
Collections: The Cluster's Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2019





	Call to (Mis)Adventure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [realfakedoors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realfakedoors/gifts).



> This is a gift to [realfakedoors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realfakedoors/pseuds/realfakedoors) as part of The Cluster's 2019 Secret Santa fic exchange. A few references are made to RFD's completed fic, [Convictions and Captivity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685378/chapters/26304207), but you don't have to have read that fic to understand this fic (though you should go and read _C &C_ if you haven't, because it's good).

"Halt evildoer!" cried Pearl, spear brandished and the sunlight sparkling brilliantly off her polished mithril armor.

The Titan of Sorrow looked up from the pink ruins she had been weeping over. Huge, blue, and wrapped in a cowl of mourning, the colossal figure scowled. "Leave me to my grief, tiny fool. Destroying you will not bring her back so I have no interest in snuffing out your insignificant life."

They were on the side of a mountain grown thick with scrub. "I shan't retreat," declared the pale elven knight with a dramatic flourish of her magical spear. The weapon's point was thrust in the direction of the landscape below, specifically the thin curls of smoke marking the location of a cluster of fields and farms. "You have terrorized the village for too long and so your reign of wickedness ends today!"

With a sigh and an unimpressed look, the Titan of Sorrow rose from her kneeling position in front of the shrine. "I don't care of such matters. And soon neither will you. You will die alone, like she did-" and a tear that would fill a rain barrel fell from her blue cheek. "-But unlike her, no one will come to mourn you."

The titan reached out but Pearl danced out of reach, moving with lithe elven grace despite her full-body armor.

"Then you are doubly mistaken," taunted Pearl. "I am the Rose Knight, a champion to the people of this realm, and I shall not perish this day!"

Pointing her magical spear at her approaching foe, the spearhead grew brighter and brighter until it unleashed a bolt of energy. It struck the titan's tear-damped cheek, causing her to recoil with a bellow of shock and pain.

Capitalizing on her foe's surprise, Pearl leapt in, scoring a hit along the calf of her colossal enemy. "And your second error was assuming I came alone."

Her opponent distracted, a girl leapt from the overhead cliff she had carefully crept up to in preparation for this ambush. Unlike the Rose Knight, whose elven-made armor was feather-light, the human squire was only partially armored. Greaves, gauntlets (each ending in a vambrace), and a breastplate covered legs, arms, and torso, respectively, with a padded undershirt visible in the gaps. "Rrraaah!" cried the teen as she plummeted, an improbably large sword held tight in her grip, pointed downward so that the force of her drop would be channeled into her strike.

The titan looked up just in time to see Connie's sword sink into the flesh of her right shoulder. With another cry of pained anger, the titan shook, Connie being flung about but holding tenaciously to the pommel of her oversized sword.

Below and ignored, Pearl leapt up and lashed out with her spear, crisscrossing lines of red contrasting brilliantly against blue flesh.

With a speed belied by her enormous size, the Titan of Sorrow's left hand swung out, swatting the Rose Knight and sending her arcing through the air only to hit the ground and tumble to a graceless stop in a thicket beside a stony path.

"Pearl!" cried Connie. With a heave, the girl pulled her sword free. Grabbing the colossal shawl in her gauntleted hand, Connie dropped down, using her grip on the fabric to control her fall. She hit the ground, dropping into a crouch to absorb the impact of her landing, then sprung forward to help her downed mentor.

"Wait," said an icy voice overhead. "I know that sword." Ignoring her injuries, the Titan of Sorrow gave chase.

Connie the Squire dodged once then flung herself into an athletic roll to evade a second grab, but then huge blue fingers encircled her, squeezing tight as iron bands and hauling her into the air. Connie struggled in vain, her sword pinned against her side.

Plucking the rose-tinged sword free, the titan held the comparatively tiny blade up where she could see it closely. "This... is the sword... THAT SLEW HER!" she roared, titanic rage and anguish echoing off the mountainside, heard from miles around.

"Nooo!" Connie cried out as the titan crushed the sword in her hand, pink fragments raining down to the stone beneath. That sword had been an heirloom, a weapon of power and history, irreplaceable and gifted to her as part of her knightly training. From the girl's grief-stricken expression you'd think it had been her in the sword's place.

Lifting her gaze from the fragments below, the Titan of Sorrow glowered stormily at Connie. "As for you..." and the grip tightened with wrathful promise, a gasp escaping Connie as her armor creaked in distress.

A trio of bolts of pure energy struck the titan. The Rose Knight, battered but undaunted, stood, weapon trained on her foe as she loosed missile after missile.

A bolt struck the titan's eye and she instinctively raised her hands to shield her face, dropping Connie in the process. It was an awkward drop but Connie landed on her feet, not letting the jolt of landing slow her down. She snatched up as many shards of her shattered weapon as she could then bolted for her mentor.

"Your reign of wickedness ends-" started Pearl, the cry interrupted by a titanic roar of fury, "-tomorrow!"

The Rose Knight jumped when the Titan of Sorrow took a menacing step in their direction.

"Or maybe next week!"

Spinning around, she gripped her pupil by the shoulder and pulled her swiftly onward, knight and squire beating a hasty retreat down the narrow path down the mountainside.

* * *

Connie and Pearl sat in the corner of the tavern, battered and demoralized. The girl's gauntlets removed, Pearl was winding a bandage around her squire's hand and forearm while the girl only stared desultory at the broken sword fragments scattered across the table.

"Oh, I wish Steven were here," fretted Pearl, tying off the bandage and moving on to the next injury. "He'd have you healed in a trice."

Connie blinked, pulling her eyes briefly away from the ruined sword to spare her also-battered mentor a look. "Aren't you hurt too, ma'am?"

Pearl waved off her concerns, retrieving more bandages from her magical gemstone of holding. "I'll be fine." She looked at the empty tavern entrance and frowned. "Oh, what could be keeping him?"

"He said in his last missive that he was being held captive for his convictions and was prisoner to his appetite.” She paused, “Or something like that; it was a little garbled,” mumbled Connie.

Pearl had been giving the jar of leeches she'd retrieved from her Gemstone of Holding an appraising look. Deciding otherwise, she started to put it back when she paused and asked, "Whatever does that mean?"

Connie shrugged. "I'm not sure. [I think it's a reference to something.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685378/chapters/26304207)"

It was at that time that a serving girl came by, dark skinned and neatly dressed, black hair pulled back by a pink ribbon. She slid a plate of food and a tankard of durian juice over to the bandaged Connie. "Here's your order." She turned to Pearl. "And you're certain you wouldn't like something from our kitchen, miss?"

Pearl shook her head. "No. Food and drink are quite unnecessary to my elven physiology."

The serving girl seemed skeptical of that but she didn't contradict the customer. Instead she said, "Then I'll just clean up your table and leave you two heroes to your meal."

She started to gather up the sword fragments when Connie bolted upright, hissing as her injuries protested the motion. "No! That isn't trash! It's all that's left of my sword!" the girl's voice wavering a little near the end.

"Sure looks like trash to me," snarked the twin to their helpful server and the only other person in the tavern. She was sitting behind the counter, a bulletin of town gossip spread in front of her, large circular earrings of gold reflecting the light filtering in from outside.

Pearl scowled but it was their server who answered in rebuke, "Jenny! Be polite to the patrons!"

Jenny just rolled her eyes without looking up from her gossip rag. "I'm just sayin', Kiki: they should take that sword to the smith if it's so important to 'em. 's better than moping about it in a tavern."

For the first time since limping in, a glimmer of hope shone through Connie's expression."There's a blacksmith here? And they can fix my sword?"

Jenny gave Connie an impish look, her mouth curling slightly up at the corner. "Well, that's pretty much her job, so probably. She's just across the village; keep going until you smell charcoal and weapon polish. You can't miss it."

Connie nearly leapt from her bench, such was her haste, unwilling to let the protests of her injuries slow her down. Bundling up the shattered sword remains into her arms, she all but sprinted out of the tavern, pausing only long enough to say a brief, "Thank you!" to the tavern twins.

Pearl started to rise as well when Kiki politely but insistently cleared her throat. "Your meal?" she asked.

"And your tab," called Jenny, flipping her bulletin over to begin reading the back.

"That too," agreed Kiki.

A little chagrined, Pearl counted out coins then transferred the steaming meal and tankard to her Gemstone of Holding. "I’ll return the plate and tankard. Cleaned," she promised, Kiki nodding politely in response and Jenny giving an unconcerned shrug without looking up from a rant written by Ronaldo the Friar.

* * *

The smithy interior was sweltering but Bismuth seemed utterly unphased by it. Tall for a dwarf and almost impossibly muscled, the smith examined the sword fragments appraisingly, angling one piece this way and that as it caught the light of the forge.

"Well?" asked Connie, too tense to wait in silence any longer.

"Yup," answered Bismuth. "It's broken."

"We knew that," objected Pearl. "We need to know if you can fix it." She gave the smith --as well as everything else in the smithy-- a wide berth. She’d be careful not to brush into anything ever since she walked in, ran one pale finger over the sign that read 'Bismuth: smith and weaponsmaster' and saw the digit come back completely soot-stained.

Bismuth, hair and beard dyed an elaborate rainbow pattern, gave an easy smile. "Of course I can fix it; I'm the one that forged it in the first place!" She shook her head. "It was good work too. That must have been some brawl that shattered it," and she gave Connie an affectionate (if rough) shove.

"We tried to take down the Titan of Sorrow," answered the girl, smarting from more than just a bruised ego.

"Oh, yeah, that'd do it," agreed the smith. "Taking down titans is serious _Bismuth."_

A beat passed and when no one laughed, the rainbow-haired dwarf muttered under her breath as she bustled around the smithy interior, grabbing indiscriminately from the seemingly endless array of weapons lining the walls.

Pearl had to back nearly out of the shop to avoid being bulled into as Bismuth approached a rack with an assortment of polearms, pulling a long ax-shaped weapon free, examining it, then maneuvering it into the increasingly bulging pack on her back.

"What are you doing?" squawked the elf before eyeing her armor for smudges.

The dwarf looked up as if she'd forgotten the others were still present. "Going to fix your sword," she deadpanned before turning back to the task at hand.

"With an _ax?"_

Bismuth scowled. "You mean a bardiche," she corrected, brandishing the long-handled weapon. "And yes, though not directly. That sword-" and she jabbed a thumb toward Connie, who had been quietly staying out of the way while she gathered up the weapon shards, "-was forged out of a special material, the ore of which I don't just have lying around."

Considering the matter settled, the smith stowed the ~~ax~~ _bardiche_ and then began accumulating even more weapons from about the shop.

Handing over a morning star that was almost too heavy for her to lift, Connie asked, "Where can we get more of the ore?"

"There's an abandoned mine in the foothills outside of town that should have some," answered Bismuth, beginning to gather up pieces to some of the thickest armor Connie had ever seen in her life.

"Why was it abandoned?" asked Pearl warily.

"Kobolds flooded the market with cheap iron; drove the miners out of _Bismuth_." Another pause and another scowl when no one laughed.

"Oh, that makes sense," said Connie, offering her mentor an easy shrug from across the smithy interior.

"That and the mutants," added Bismuth, hefting a crate labeled only by a grinning skull and a mushroom cloud. 

“The what?!”

Instead of answering her, Bismuth pulled the top off the box, then handed it roughly to Pearl. Turning sideways and motioning at her back, she said, "Hey, grab a couple armfuls of these and put 'em in that side pouch there. Make sure there aren't any blasting caps in there first, though, or we'll be showing up at the mine in itty bitty pieces."

* * *

Bismuth offered to light the campfire with a little of the explosive powder she'd packed. Connie already had flint and iron out before Pearl could stammer a polite refusal.

Fire burning merrily, Connie was stirring a soup pot suspended over the fire pit while Bismuth sharpened her weapons. All of them. Pearl looked into the darkness, vigilant for threats.

"Thanks again for helping us on this quest, Bismuth," said Connie. Sampling the soup, she nodded and began to ladle it into wooden bowls. Pearl politely waved hers away but Bismuth took hers and quaffed it with gusto, seemingly unbothered by the broth being steaming hot.

Wiping her mouth on the back of her arm, Bismuth said, "Sure thing. I've been meaning to get more of that ore anyway. Plus, It'll be good to get out and bust some heads. Smithing is fun and all, but I'm also a weaponsmaster.” She gestured to the pack bulging with armaments. “Those things aren't for holding tea parties." Setting the bowl on the ground nearby, Bismuth added, "Oh, that reminds me: here's a loaner until I get your sword fixed," and she rummaged through her pack until she found a sheathed blade and offered it to the girl.

Connie hurriedly set her soup aside and accepted the sword, drawing it out of the scabbard so she could examine it, firelight dancing along the edge of the blade. It was a saber, similar to the ones she had first used when she'd begun her squiring to Pearl. She sheathed it and set it carefully beside her bedroll. "Thank you. I'll take good care of it, I promise."

Bismuth waved her off. "Don't worry about it." A beat, then she picked up her bowl and waggled it at Connie. "But I'll take a refill if you're offering," she said, voice mirthful.

Connie was quick to help, ladling another large serving out to the bluff dwarf. Bismuth took it and downed the soup just as quickly as the last, finishing with a satisfied 'Aah!' that seemed to mildly offend the Rose Knight's sensibilities.

"What are you doing so far from the dwarven halls?" asked the pale sentinel as she kept her eyes trained on the darkness beyond the edge of the firelight.

There was the rasp of wetstone against steel as Bismuth returned to her sharpening. "I've got some problems with how the ruling council operates," she said casually.

"Oh?" asked Pearl. "Like what?"

"For starters, that they're allowed to rule at all." Bismuth shook her head, her hands never pausing in their work. "Those deep-dwelling elites don't care about anything but power and control. Someone needs to show them that they may need the common dwarves, but the common dwarves don't need them."

There were several seconds of silence save for the crackle of the fire and the rasp of stone on steel.

"I've got something special I'm working on before heading back home," added Bismuth with a wink, "and some high-quality ore like what we'll be getting will help with that." Rasssp. Rasssp. "What about you two?"

Pearl raised her chin, looking every inch the noble figure as her mithril armor reflected the firelight like a mirror of stars. "I was squire to the greatest hero of our age: Rosemary the Pink. Pledged to her cause, I continue to fight evil and uphold the chivalric virtues." She turned and gave Connie a warm smile. "And I am apprenticing a promising knight-in-training right now."

Connie's cheeks flushed at the praise as she bobbed her head. "Thank you, ma'am."

Pearl's warm expression fell and she said in an exasperated tone. "I also help rear Rosemary's son, _which would be easier if he were actually present for the adventure!"_

Connie pulled a small crystal ball from her pack and held it up to the light. "I'm sorry, ma'am. No new missives. I'm sure he'll show up as soon as he can, though."

This was met with some grumbling from the the pale elf but nothing more came of it. After pulling the cookware off the fire, Connie yawned and said, "We should set up a watch rotation for the night so that we can all rest without leaving ourselves open to ambush."

Pearl offered her squire an affectionate if slightly condescending smile and said, "That won't be necessary. Sleep is no concern to an elf like myself so I'll keep the camp safe." Her gaze slid over to the pile of unwashed cookware, her mouth narrowing into a line. "And clean. Regardless, you two may rest."

"No kidding?" said Bismuth, sparing a look of wonder at the pale elf. "Well, good enough for me!" The large dwarf flopped down on the bare ground, reached over to pull a sizzling-hot stone from the fire, then cuddled it like a teddy bear while she laid on her side. The silence was split with the rumbling of snores like a miniature earthquake less than a minute later.

Sharing a bemused look with her mentor, Connie scooched into her bed roll and laid down. She turned from side to side, having difficulty falling asleep. Then she pulled her padded undershirt out of her pack, sandwiching her head between pillow and shirt. The snores sufficiently muffled, Connie heaved a sigh of relief and was asleep soon after.

* * *

The approach to the mine involved walking a path in disrepair, much of it having crumbled into the fast-moving river running beside it. Bismuth was in good cheer but wasn't particularly fast-moving herself, and the broad-shouldered dwarf was nearly as wide as the path.

The trio made slow progress, arriving at the mine's entrance as the sun was clearing its apex and beginning to descend toward evening. The mine itself was sealed tightly, solid-looking mortar holding large stone blocks like a castle wall writ small.

There was a warning sign on the trail beside the entrance, but before Connie could read it, the ground beneath it crumbled away and the whole thing vanished into the turbulent waters below.

Pointing to it, Connie said, "I don't think that's a good sign."

It wasn't until Bismuth's booming laugh was echoing off the hills that she realized the unintentional joke.

Pearl, meanwhile, shook her head, weaving a little on her feet and squinting at the entrance. "This is it?" she asked.

Connie frowned. "Yes ma'am. Um, are you alright?"

Pearl's eyes seemed to have some difficulty focusing on Connie. She furrowed her delicate brows and said, "Yes. Of course. Merely eager to see this quest through so we can move on to greater heroics, my squire."

Connie didn't look entirely persuaded but she didn't press the subject.

Bismuth, meanwhile, had approached the sealed cave entrance. Kneeling down, she rummaged through her pack.

Connie jogged over. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Getting us into the mine," explained the smith.

Connie's eyes lit up. "Oh! Is there a hidden passageway? Do we need to recite a dwarven ballad or speak 'Friend' in Elvish?" She started to reach for her pack, saying, "Actually, Steven's a bard and knows all about that sort of thing. I can see if he's answering his crystal to find out if he's heard of this in his travels."

There was a chuckle that drew Connie's eyes up to see Bismuth shaking her head. "You're overthinking this, squire. To get in, all we have to do is knock."

Connie blinked. "What? Really?" The corners of her mouth turned down slightly: she'd been expecting something more... involved. It wasn't until she saw a blur of motion and heard a thundering _CRASH_ that she noticed Bismuth swinging the largest warhammer Connie had ever seen.

"What are you doing?" shouted the girl as she jogged back to avoid flying rock fragments.

"Knocking!" answered the smith as she wound up and delivered another thundering blow. Two more such swings and a chunk of the wall was staved in. Another three and the hole was large enough that even Bismuth could squeeze through.

"After you lot," answered the weaponmaster, switching out her warhammer for a pair of handaxes.

Connie lit a torch, saber in her other hand as she and her mentor entered the mine.

* * *

As they went deeper into the mine, Connie saw sparkling reflections of her torchlight from the walls. Thin lines of silvery metal were visible.

Bismuth followed her gaze and chuckled. "That's what we're looking for, but in richer veins than those. You'd barely be able to scratch out an ingot's-worth mining those."

Pearl halted, magical spear appearing in her hand. "Do you hear that?"

Bismuth and Connie both fell silent, the latter straining to match her mentor's keen senses. A few seconds later she heard it too: a strange warbling sound, somewhere between an animal's ululation and a person weeping.

"The mutants," answered Bismuth. "They must have heard us coming."

"How could they miss it?" muttered Pearl under her breath.

"Let's keep moving," said Bismuth, not hearing or ignoring the Rose Knight's remark. "The ore won't come to us even if the mutants will," and with that she trundled forward, humming a jaunty tune, one handaxe resting on her shoulder, the other held loose at her side.

The first of the mutants found them ten minutes later. It was at a branch in the tunnel when Connie saw a flicker in the gloom beyond her torchlight. Then a trio of figures lurched forward, each a hodgepodge combination of features and colors, each covered with hard, scale-like crystal growths. One had six hands and no discernible head; another had two small arms emerging from one shoulder and an enormous, club-like arm that nearly reached to the floor coming from the other, it's face featureless save for a tiny cluster of crystals sparkling at the center; the third was stranger still.

Bismuth gave a bellow and lunged into the melee, axes swinging. Pearl, still strangely unsteady on her feet, was slow to raise her spear but she began peppering shots over the smith's shoulders when a mutant reared up.

Connie was still looking for a way to feasibly fit past the broad smith taking up the tunnel when more motion in her peripheral vision caught her eye. Another wave of mutants! The first was nothing more than a blue hand grafted to a red foot, hopping and grasping as it approached. It came up scarcely to Connie's ankle but it was joined by scores of others, a carpet of mismatched miniature monstrosities approaching.

"We're being flanked!" shouted the girl as she charged ahead, raking her saber over the encroaching swarm.

As she felt a flurry of kicks against her greaves, she added without intending to, "I guess this is why they're called 'foothills.'"

Pearl's groan and Bismuth's echoing laugh was her answer as the ring of battle grew louder.

* * *

"Is the branch ahead clear?" asked Connie, brow slick with sweat, the muscles of her sword-arm burning. They were deeper in the mine, their descent marked by one running battle after another, so many that they’d begun to blur together.

"We don't know!" squawked Pearl, distressed. "They just keep COMING and COMING and we don't even know where we ARE!"

The weaponmaster, who had proven true to her word by switching effortlessly from weapon to weapon as the situation (or mood) struck her, was fending off a large, almost tube-shaped monstrosity with a glaive. "We're getting closer to the payload, is where we are. I can smell it!"

True to her word, the lines of silvery metal in the wall were larger and brighter.

With a shout and a lunge, Connie skewered a foe who was effectively a giant hand walking upright on two of its fingers, a sphere-like eye in the place where a head would be. When nothing else immediately jumped out to take its place, Connie called back, "Hurry, before the next wave arrives."

The tunnel twisted and twisted again before they came to a room that caused Connie's mouth to drop in wonder: great stalactites of silver hung low, the air moist and the sounds of a subterranean river unmistakable. _This must feed into the same river we traveled beside approaching the mine,_ a corner of Connie observed.

Wavering, Pearl stabbed at a mutant and missed only for Bismuth to cleave in its head with a mace she'd switched to when Connie wasn't watching. Sparing a glance at the room they'd entered, Bismuth said, "Yes! The motherlode! This is what we came for, gals!"

The great metal stalactites serving like enormous mirrors, Connie could see figures shuffling their way from every possible direction. "I- I don't think we can hold off this many," said the girl, her voice wavering. She'd be shamed by her faltering resolve if the exhaustion hadn't crowded out all else.

Bismuth, seemingly unphased, hustled past, unslinging her pack and busying herself with who-knew-what.

Pearl shot at a 'mutant' only to strike the reflection of one in the wall... though in fairness they didn't look appreciably weirder even when seen in a warped surface.

"Ma'am, what's wrong?" called the girl, drawing closer to her strangely ineffective mentor.

"I don't know! I feel weak and- and slow. My eyes keep trying to shut and the middle of my form is growling," answered the Rose Knight anxiously.

"You're tired! And hungry!" shouted the girl.

"But my elven physiology-"

"That's not how elves work!"

As the numberless horde began to close in, great, muscular arms encircled Connie and Pearl both. "Time to go, gals! We've got a date with the far side of the blast radius!"

"Wait, the far side of the wha-" but Connie's question was cut off as Bismuth lunged into the roaring river, Connie and Pearl clutched tightly to the bearded chest. The last thing the girl saw before being submerged was a lit fuse running into the bulging side pouch of Bismuth's pack.

* * *

There was cold and darkness, water buffeting them from all sides, Bismuth losing her grasp and all three of them spinning free in the tumult. Then there was a noise Connie felt rather than heard, the water surging ahead as if they'd been fired from a catapult. Then there was light, Connie gasping and sputtering as she surfaced outside the mine, clambering to grab the rocky shore and keep from getting swept further downstream.

Finally there was a noise like an approaching avalanche and Connie was able to look up in time to see the dome of the hill crumble inward, the entire cavern complex collapsing.

With a great plume of dust sent skyward, the roar of falling stone ebbed and with it, so too did the current. The water level of the river dropped and before long Connie was wading through a rubble-strewn riverbed, puddles glistening in the waning sunlight.

Pearl, leaning on her spear, staggered out of a strand of river reeds. "We will _certainly-"_ she declared while removing a boot and shaking out a generous amount of water, "-be making some revisions to the ballad that comes of this quest." A fish wriggled out of the boot and flopped frantically until it managed to tumble into a puddle. Pearl shuddered and, with clear apprehension, removed the other boot to see what escaped.

Bismuth had been swept further downstream but came bounding their way, slip-sliding over the wet riverbed in good cheer. "Explosives!" she announced. "The cause of and solution to all of life's problems!"

Connie was sitting on a large, grey rock, damp and shiny in the sunlight, wringing out her hair. She was wet to a degree she hadn’t thought possible, and she was dreading in advance the hours it would take to scour the rust from her armor after all of this was over.

"But we didn't get any of the ore!" she said, emotion thick in her voice. Steven had gifted her that sword himself. Would he be angry when he learned she had broken it and then botched the quest to see it fixed? And even if he wasn’t angry, he might be disappointed, and to Connie that was just as bad.

"Didn't get any ore?" Bismuth laughed. "What do you think you're sitting on?"

Connie blinked, looked down, then leapt to her feet in surprise. Sure enough, her seat was a chunk of silvery metal as wide around as a wagon wheel. A glance across the riverbed revealed that many of the sparkles she'd mistaken for puddles were actually more of the same.

"Stuff your pockets," boomed the smith with clear mirth. "Because I seem to have misplaced my backpack."

Pearl scoffed, bags clear under her eyes, and she retrieved her Gemstone of Holding. With Connie and Bismuth's help, the two began to scour the riverbed, loading the gem with the lustrous metal.

* * *

Even Bismuth was showing signs of exhaustion as nightfall approached. Connie was barely on her feet, and the less said about Pearl, the better.

Which was why Connie almost didn't notice Steven until he was right in front of her.

There was a strum of a lute, a fragment of song, and then Connie felt her aches and injuries start to lessen as his magic reinvigorated her.

"Hi Connie! Pearl! Sorry I was late," answered the boy chipperly. "You would not believe the week I've been having. Why it'd take more than forty chapters to write it all down!"

Before Connie could try and parse that statement, or her surprise at Steven's return, the affable bard had turned to Bismuth and shook her hand. "Hello stranger. I'm Steven!"

"Bismuth," answered the dwarf. "Weaponmaster, smith, and hero who is about thirty seconds away from exploring the back of her eyelids." As if to punctuate her sentence, the rainbow-haired adventurer nearly drooped to the ground.

"Steven!" cheered Pearl, hardly able to see straight. "You came to join us on the quest to reforge Rosemary's sword and defeat the Titan of Sorrow?" she hazarded.

Steven moved in to help maneuver a loopy Rose Knight into a seated position, taking one pale arm over his shoulder and lowering her gently to a fallen log. Brows furrowed in worry, he said, "No, actually. See, the river to the village has mysteriously gone dry. I was sent to find out why and I found you three here. Do you have any idea what could be-"

* * *

Bismuth started to laugh and pound the table, causing the dice and pewter minis to bounce around. She didn't stop when Peedee glared at her from over the top of his gamemaster screen, nor did she stop when a library came into the room and pointedly shushed them.

Pearl, meanwhile, had her nose buried in a rulebook. "I'm certain I saw a passage in here where-"

Shooting Bismuth another ignored glare, Peedee turned to Pearl and gave an exasperated sigh. "It's like Connie keeps telling you, Pearl: elves have to eat and sleep just like everyone else. That's why the Rose Knight has been whiffing through most of the fights: at this point your penalties are sky high."

Bismuth pounded the table again, still laughing.

"I understand that," insisted Pearl, "but in numerous mythical sources, eating is-"

Another world-weary sigh from Peedee, "Yeah, but not in _Lutes and Loot._ You know, the game we're playing? The game whose rulebook you're holding right now?"

Pearls brows furrowed and she turned back to the book, muttering to herself and flipping back a couple of pages.

Steven shot Connie a worried look and mouthed, 'How bad has it been?'

Connie gave a helpless shrug and mouthed back, 'You didn't miss much.'

Then the head librarian of the Buddwick Public Library, flanked by the librarian who had shushed them from before, said, "I'm sorry but you'll have to take your activity someplace else. You're disrupting the other patrons despite _numerous_ warnings."

Connie and Steven were all apologies as they hastily helped pack up Peedee's gaming material and led the frustrated Pearl and guffawing Bismuth away.

Having been kicked out of Peedee’s house, Fish Stew Pizza, the Big Donut interior, the outdoor seating in front of the Big Donut, and now the library, the four intrepid heroes (and their very done-with-this-crap gamemaster) set forth to find another location from which to continue their grand adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I ~~ripped off~~ revisited the idea from [Connie Swap](https://archiveofourown.org/series/630527) of Peedee running a roleplaying game for Connie, Steven, and the gems. It was a way for me to thread the needle on some of RFD's asks for the Secret Santa exchange, plus I just love the idea of these characters sitting around the gaming table between missions and engaging (or failing to engage) with Peedee's epic fantasy campaign.


End file.
